October 11-12, 1986 marked a seminal event in United States-Soviet relations. For these
two days, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev held
meetings in Reykjavik, Iceland for what became one of the most remarkable meetings ever held
between the two superpowers. The tangible product of the meeting was the basis for the INF
Treaty and START, however, it is the proposal which failed to reach written form that sparks the
most interest. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev engaged each other in a negotiating session
in which the ultimate proposal was the elimination of all nuclear weapons. The Cold War was still
in full force and although Gorbachev possessed lofty domestic goals, the domestic climate in both
nations was not favorable to the abolishment of nuclear weapons. How and why this dramatic
proposal was made, and ultimately rejected, will be the focus of this paper.
Background
For more than 40 years the United States and the Soviet Union vacillated between intense
conflict and moments of agreement on issues of strategic, regional and international importance.
The arms race and superiority in weapons symbolized the greater rivalry between political and
economic systems. A stalemate in the arms race led to a series of negotiations and agreements
which served to restrain the costly and nonproductive competition between the superpowers. In
1963, the Limited Test Ban Treaty, which was signed by the United States, the Soviet Union, and
the United Kingdom, limited the testing of nuclear weapons to underground explosions (the
Threshold Test Ban Treaty in 1974 confined underground explosions to 150 kilotons). In 1972,
the United States and the Soviet Union signed SALT I, which limited the number of land- and
sea-based strategic nuclear delivery vehicles by freezing their deployment and construction for
five years. In addition, the ABM Treaty limited both sides to not more than two ABM sites. In
1979, SALT II, although not ratified by the U.S. Senate as a consequence of the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan, created ceilings for launch vehicles and subceilings for MIRVs, which were
adhered to by both sides.
Convention